Rev. Charles Tinsley is saving souls, but not the way you'd expect. He leads them to greener pastures -- literally.

The chaplain at Contra Costa County's Juvenile Hall, Tinsley is a mentor, friend and in some cases a surrogate father to the 300 or so young men and women who fill the rooms at the detention center on any given day.

He counsels them about life, education and spiritual strength. But he also tells them that in order to break free of the "street forces" that await them on the outside, they must start a new life in a new location.

"I tell my kids they have to get an education and go someplace else to do it," said Tinsley. "There are parts of Richmond that are nothing more than killing fields" for young black men.

Those words seem particularly appropriate after this month's killing of former De La Salle High football star Terrance Kelly. He was gunned down in the city's tough Iron Triangle neighborhood -- less than two days before he was to leave for the University of Oregon on a football scholarship.

Since 1998, Tinsley has helped more than 100 former clients get out of the 'hood and enroll in college. About 15 of them have attended Butte College, a junior college in Oroville, and as many as 55 others have attended Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tenn.

Although only one student remains in school, several of them turned their lives around upon their return to the Bay Area. One owns a trucking company; another moved to Sacramento, got married and found work with a cellular phone company. A third is preparing for the physical tests required to become an Oakland firefighter.

But not all the former Knoxville students have done as well, and there have been tragedies that illustrate just how important Tinsley's one-man crusade has become.

Within the last three weeks, two of Tinsley's former clients, both former students at Knoxville, have turned up dead. On Aug. 10, the body of Damian Leroy Robinson was found in an apartment in the 2600 block of Center Ave. in Richmond. He'd been shot in the head.

On Monday, the body of Orlando Green, a former Richmond resident who attended Knoxville College, was found in a wooded area outside the city. He had been burned beyond recognition. A third client, Danjei Ellis, was shot to death Dec. 26, 2001, in a drug dispute on the streets of West Oakland. None of the young men was more than 21 years old.

"It's been difficult, but if it discouraged me I wouldn't be able to do it anymore," he said.

Tinsley withstood blistering complaints about that first group of kids who attended Knoxville.

"Almost immediately I started receiving calls" from campus administrators, he said. Administrators went down a list of incidents involving his kids that included guns and drugs in dorm rooms, fights with campus police and one young man who was accused of coercing women into prostitution.

"I was known on the campus as 'that California preacher who keeps sending thugs down here,' " he said.

The troubles over the years contributed to the end of the relationship between Tinsley and the Tennessee college. But he remains undaunted: In October, he will take another group of about 100 kids, including some male youths incarcerated at the Byron Boy's Ranch, on a tour of the campus at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, where he hopes to forge another partnership that will create educational opportunities.

In the meantime, Tinsley is working to fund the departure of two clients who've made the decision to leave the old lifestyle, and the old neighborhood, behind them.

Justin Hernandez, 18, is preparing for life outside the group home in Martinez where he now lives. Hernandez was abandoned by his parents and raised by different family members over the years. He was lost and alone, and he felt the world had nothing to offer him.

"Basically, I was on my own. No mother. No father," Hernandez wrote in a letter that Tinsley has distributed in order to raise funds that would allow Hernandez to work in a volunteer program in Hollywood that serves the homeless.

"The program I am about to enter will give me the opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do: help the needy," he wrote.

Dwight Blueford, also 18, started classes at Butte College this week. Like Hernandez, Blueford grew up estranged from his parents and struggled through adolescence.

"I'm looking forward to attending Butte College, but it is hard for someone who doesn't have parents in their life," Blueford wrote.

Blueford completed a GED at the detention center and earned his high school diploma upon his release.

Tinsley is committed to continue working with some of the East Bay's most troubled kids in the hopes that he can cast a wide net and save as many as he can.

"You can take the kid out of the neighborhood, but the trick is finding a way to take the neighborhood out of the kid," Tinsley said.

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